Breaking out of a strange, silent world

Christopher Lee and son Tagg can have conversations again, thanks to the cochlear implant Lee received at St. Paul's.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

At left, the internal portion of the cochlear device implanted in Christopher Lee, as well as the external part, at right.Arlen Redekop, PNG
/ The Province

When Christopher Lee suddenly became deaf, his main concern was how he would communicate with his six-year-old son.

An anxious Lee had already lost his hearing in both ears when he went to St. Paul's Hospital's cochlear implant clinic a year ago for an assessment. Clinic staff asked what his hopes and expectations were for the implant.

"I just want to have a regular conversation with my son," he told them.

"Anything else would be a bonus." Lee was 23 and studying in Taiwan when he lost his hearing in his right ear over a period of three days. By the time he returned to Canada weeks later and went to see a specialist, it was too late.

Lee made do with his left ear for 20 years until in October 2010, that, too, started to fade.

He was put on steroids, but that only slowed down the hearing loss. Hearing aids, which can only amplify sound, did not help, as the damage — likely caused by a viral infection — was in Lee's cochlea, the auditory portion of the inner ear.

Within months, Lee, a corporate lawyer with a young son, was deaf — banished to a strange, silent world.

"Once hearing aids are not helpful, you are in a deaf world," said audiologist Cindy Gustin.

But thanks to St. Paul's cochlear implant clinic — the oldest in Canada, founded in 1982 — it's a world 425 people have been able to leave behind.

The clinic's first patient, Lucy Philpott, was 22 when meningitis left her deaf.

"It was very frustrating for me," she wrote in an email. "I was lost in a world that I knew nothing of."

Philpott learned about cochlear implants on the show That's Incredible. She wrote to the show and got referred to Dr. Patrick Doyle, the clinic's founder.

"I had nothing to lose from the operation," she said. Today, her hearing is good, said Lucy, who lives in Tumbler Ridge.

In Lee's case, Dr. Brian Westerberg implanted a 20-millimetre array of electrodes in his cochlea through an incision behind the ear. The cochlea, a snail-shaped chamber in the inner ear, contains thousands of hair cells that convert sound vibrations into nerve impulses the brain interprets as sound.

Hooked onto Lee's ear is an external sound processor. When the machine is on, Lee can hear — but differently.

"We're replacing 16,000 hair cells with 22 electrodes," said Lee. "It's like replacing a full symphony orchestra with an electronic keyboard you picked up at Toys 'R' Us for your kid."

Gustin said some patients first hear voices as cartoonish or robotic or as chirps and beeps, while others hear a garbled foreign language.

For Lee, it was as if everyone was speaking like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Simple sounds such as knocks and bangs were easier, but voices took effort. Music is still a struggle.

Gustin said that at some point Lee's auditory memory kicks in and, with practice, begins bridging the new sound and his memory of the sound.

"It is amazing what the human brain can do," she said.

Cochlear implants are ideal for patients who were able to hear previously. For someone born deaf, who never developed language, outcomes aren't as successful. St. Paul's cochlear implant clinic is funded for 25 implants a year, and the wait list is about a year long.

The cost of providing the first implant is $40,000, with another $30,000 for the second. The $6,000 sound processor must be replaced every six years. The clinic usually provides only one implant for adults. Babies and children receive two because of their youth.

"If a child is born deaf, and they get a cochlear implant, by and large, they will grow up hearing the same as a hearing child," said Westerberg.

Today, Lee is able to use the phone, ride his bike, play sports and coach his son Tagg's soccer team.

He is able to have a conversation with Tagg while walking down the street rather than having to sit him down and look at him to read his lips or for visual cues.

"It's a second chance at hearing," he said. "The people at the clinic are great. They do incredible work."

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